Then indeed she made no stay, but set off running at her swiftest
along the water-side toward the creek and the Sending Boat. As is
aforesaid she was as fleet-foot as a deer, so but in a little space
of time she had come to the creek, and leapt into the boat, panting
and breathless. She turned and looked hastily along the path her
feet had just worn, and deemed she saw a fluttering and flashing
coming along it, but some way off; yet was not sure, for her eyes
were dizzy with the swiftness of her flight and the hot sun and the
hurry of her heart. Then she looked about a moment confusedly, for
she called to mind that in her nakedness she had neither knife, nor
scissors, nor bodkin to let her blood withal. But even therewith
close to hand she saw hanging down a stem of half-dead briar-rose
with big thorns upon it; she hastily tore off a length thereof and
scratched her left arm till the blood flowed, and stepped lightly
first to stem and then to stern, and besmeared them therewith. Then
she sat down on the thwart and cried aloud:


The red raven-wine now
Hast thou drunk, stern and bow;
Then wake and awake
And the wonted way take!
The way of the Wender forth over the flood,
For the will of the Sender is blent with the blood.


Scarce had she time to wonder if the boat would obey her spell ere it
began to stir beneath her, and then glided out into the lake and took
its way over the summer ripple, going betwixt Green Eyot and the
mainland, as if to weather the western ness of the eyot: and it went